Archive for the 'National Security / Intelligence' Category

Evidence that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood was directly involved in the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, where Americans including U.S. ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens were killed, continues to mount.

First, on June 26, 2013, I produced and partially translated what purported to be an internal Libyan governmental memo which was leaked and picked up by many Arabic websites. According to this document, the Muslim Brotherhood, including now ousted President Morsi, played a direct role in the Benghazi consulate attack. “Based on confessions derived from some of those arrested at the scene,” asserted the report, six people, “all of them Egyptians” from the jihad group Ansar al-Sharia (Supporters of Islamic Law), were arrested. During interrogations, these Egyptian jihadi cell members:

The most critical, clear and present dangers to US’ national security, homeland security and economy, are Iran’s nuclearization, Islamic terrorism, the explosive impact of the seismic Arab Street, the potential disruption of the supply and price of imported-oil and the declining US posture of deterrence.

The most clear and present policy to alleviate these threats would be US energy independence, ending dependence on unpredictable Arab oil producers, bolstering the US posture of deterrence, accelerating economic growth, improving the trade balance, reducing the budget deficit, lowering energy costs, expanding employment and availing more funds toward infrastructure, education, the elderly, Medicare and human services in general.

The man who wrote the Patriot Act, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), recently published an article in The Guardian entitled “This abuse of the Patriot Act must end,” concluding “President Obama falsely claims Congress authorised all NSA surveillance. In fact, our law was designed to protect liberties.” He’s right. Investor’s Business Daily pointed out that the massive (and ludicrous) NSA surveillance operation under Obama didn’t detect the Boston bombers and:

… the Patriot Act’s author says this isn’t the targeted surveillance intended and warns of losing needles in a too-big haystack. …

But we want to preserve the records of every housewife in Des Moines because data mining that arguably invades the privacy rights of innocent Americans might reveal something. …

In a typically maladroit statement, U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry recently complained that Israelis are too contented to end their conflict with the Palestinians: “People in Israel aren’t waking up every day and wondering if tomorrow there will be peace because there is a sense of security and a sense of accomplishment and of prosperity.”

What is most important to understand about the revelations of massive message interception by the U.S. government is this:

In counterterrorist terms, it is a farce. Basically the NSA, as one of my readers suggested, is the digital equivalent of the TSA strip-searching an 80 year-old Minnesota grandmothers rather than profiling and focusing on the likely terrorists.

There is a fallacy behind the current intelligence strategy of the United States, the collection of massive amounts of phone calls, emails, and even credit card expenditures, up to 3 billion phone calls a day alone, not to mention the government spying on the mass media. It is this:

This past week U.S. President Obama made Susan Rice his new National Security Adviser and Samantha Power his ambassador to the UN. Both women have the kind of credentials, loyalty and temperament that Obama needs to go full steam ahead on his second term agenda which includes the Obamification of the world, further apologizing for America, weakening the U.S. at every opportunity and saying “sorry” by supporting the most dangerous players on the world stage. The President is effectively giving up America’s position as defender of freedom and promoter of democracy and Judeo-Christian values. The Pax Americana era has long since disappeared. The safety derived from strength has disappeared. A state of vulnerability has resulted from political correctness and contrived shame that Obama conveys as a mea culpa for the U.S. having once been a dominant nation.

The Guardian first broke the story, but now it’s being picked up by news outlets like the Washington Post. From the Guardian:

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America’s largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk — regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing. …

Errors by the party in power can get America into trouble; real catastrophes require consensus.

Rarely have both parties been as unanimous about a development overseas as they have in their shared enthusiasm for the so-called Arab Spring during the first months of 2011. Republicans vied with the Obama Administration in their zeal for the ouster of Egypt’s dictator Hosni Mubarak and in championing the subsequent NATO intervention against Muammar Qaddafi in Libya. Both parties saw themselves as having been vindicated by events. The Obama Administration saw its actions as proof that soft power in pursuit of humanitarian goals offered a new paradigm for foreign-policy success. And the Republican establishment saw a vindication of the Bush freedom agenda.

I’ve been closely reading the Gang of Eight immigration reform bill introduced into the Senate (the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act”). And I have to admit the more I read, the more I feel sullied. To say it is deeply flawed is a sad understatement, like describing a catastrophic category-5 hurricane as a “bad storm”.

They were celebrating in Cairo the arrival of four new U.S. F-16s and the likelihood that the United States would give $2 billion in aid to Egypt this year. They were also celebrating the warm welcome given to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Is there a contradiction here?

And also given the ongoing violence in Egypt and the Islamist regime’s declaration of a state of emergency in three governates–a policy it and other opposition groups always rejected under the previous government–it is reasonable for the United States to postpone military gifts of F16s, advanced tanks, and other weapons to Cairo.

Chuck Hagel is unqualified and ill-qualified to become America’s Secretary of Defense. Hagel is too cozy with enemies of the U.S. and is openly hostile towards Israel, one of America’s closest allies. According to FOX News, Hagel “appeared to agree with the assertion that America is ‘the world’s bully’” and that he has “complained about the ‘Jewish lobby.’” Yahoo! News noted Hagel’s beliefs about the “‘Jewish lobby’ and its influence on American-Israeli ties.” According to Senator John Cornyn (R), “Hagel voted against a 2007 measure that called for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to be designated a terrorist group;” “In July 2008, Hagel recommended that Washington go beyond direct talks and establish a U.S. diplomatic mission in Tehran;” “in his 2008 book, ‘America: Our Next Chapter,’ Hagel appeared to suggest that the United States could live with a nuclear Iran;” and, “Hagel wants us to be softer on the Iranians, he thinks we should be tougher on the Israelis.” Given Hagel’s dubious track-record, the nonprofit organization SecureAmericaNow.org has been lobbying against his confirmation as U.S. defense secretary. SecureAmericaNow has provided a set of resources enabling concerned citizens to help block President Obama’s move to confirm Senator Hagel.

Three thoughts as the U.S. Senate gears up to consider on Jan 31 the nomination of Chuck Hagel for the position of secretary of defense:

(1) It’s more than a bit curious that Barack Obama should nominate a politician of no distinction, with no significant bills to his name, no administrative accomplishments, and no known ideas, to the hugely important post of secretary of defense. It’s even more curious that Hagel is known for only two foreign policy/defense views: being soft on Iran and hostile to Israel. This certainly sends a strong signal to Israel.

The US Senate vote on the nomination of John Brennan and Chuck Hagel to the positions of CIA Director and Defense Secretary, respectively, will shape US power projection and posture of deterrence, global sanity, war on Islamic terrorism and the US determination to avert the wrath of a nuclear Iran.

John Brennan presented his position on Iran in the July, 2008 issue of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science: “A critical step toward improved US-Iranian relations would be for US officials to cease public Iran-bashing, a tactic that may have served short-term domestic political interests, but that has heretofore been wholly counterproductive to U.S. strategic interests.”

On the eve of the January 22, 2013 Israeli election, the Israeli constituent demonstrates more realism than Israeli politicians. Israelis highlight security imperatives when responding to reality-driven polls, which pose questions based on the stormy Arab Winter and not on the mirage of the Arab Spring.

Increasingly, Israelis recognize that — in the Middle East — bolstered security constitutes a solid base for survival and for the pursuit of peace. They realize that the pursuit of peace, by lowering the threshold of security, could jeopardize survival, as well as the slim chance for peace.